Prime Time (2 page)

‘How? How did she die?’

Annika moved the child away, got up and got a change of perspective. The baggage cluttering her hall shrunk and disappeared; all that remained were her computer and her big bag. With a thud, Ellen flopped down on her behind and started to cry again. Thomas picked her up.

‘They’re already on their way over to pick me up,’ Annika said.

For two seconds, Thomas stared at her uncomprehendingly.

‘The boat leaves at eleven,’ he told her.

Annika took their daughter, carried her over to her crib and kissed the top of her head. The relief she felt at getting out of the visit to her in-laws and the island cottage was replaced by a sense of loss.

‘Oh, baby,’ she whispered into Ellen’s hair, ‘Mommy loves you so very much.’

Not wanting to nap, Ellen resisted. Annika couldn’t make herself let go of the baby.

‘Mommy will be back later. You and your daddy and your big brother will be together, and you’ll have a great time. I know this is for the best.’

The child turned her face away from the lie, tucked her legs in under her and put her thumb in her mouth. Annika stroked Ellen’s hair awkwardly, her hands and her heart suddenly lacking grace. She quickly left the bedroom, bumping into the doorpost on her way out. The soundtrack noise of Scooby Doo being chased by a ghost trickled in from the living room. Kalle’s sweet little singing voice was there, behind the wall of noise.

Everyone else can do it
, Annika thought.
I can do it too, I have to.

‘Are you serious?’ Thomas demanded when she came back into the hall. ‘Are you really going to work? Right now?’

The last words boomed loudly. She looked down at the wooden floorboards.

‘There isn’t anyone else. I’m on call, and you know how understaffed––’

Red in the face, he leaned forward and shouted: ‘Come on! Fifty people are waiting for us out at Gällnö, and you’re not going?’

The gamut of emotions ranging from panic to relief to loss passing through her now exploded into unexpected and unreasonable rage.

‘Waiting for
you
,’ Annika said, ‘not
me.
They couldn’t give a damn about me, and you know it.’

Kalle came into the hall, the raised voices of his parents leaving him wide-eyed. He slipped into Annika’s arms, throwing his arms around her neck. His softness threatened to undo her.

‘You really are something else,’ Thomas said.

‘Don’t make it any worse,’ Annika said in a low voice while crouching down to embrace her son. ‘Go out to the island, party with your buddies and your brother and let the kids play, and everything will be just fine.’

Her son nuzzled her ear.

‘Buddies? You make it sound like this was some kind of pleasure trip. Buddies! We’re talking about my parents and my aunts here.’

Annika tore herself away from the warm embrace, kissed her three-year-old son on his velvety cheeks, and gazed up at Thomas.

‘What happens next is up to you,’ she said. ‘I’ll be here when you get back on Sunday.’

She set the boy down, got up and pulled on her raincoat.

‘You can’t be serious,’ Thomas exclaimed. ‘You can’t leave me like this.’

‘There’s going to be so many people around that no one will miss me, not even the kids. Have a good time.’

Annika put on her boots, slung her bag over her shoulder and picked up her laptop in its black case. Watching Thomas the whole time, her expression reserved.

‘Well, wasn’t this convenient,’ he remarked tersely.

‘It’s not like we haven’t discussed this,’ she countered. ‘It’s not easy for me. You know that I have no choice.’

‘A fine mother you are!’

Annika blanched.

‘Do you think I like to do this?’ she asked him breathlessly. ‘That’s awfully unfair of you.’

‘This stinks,’ Thomas said, his back rigid and his face red. ‘I’m never going to forgive you for this. Damn you!’

Annika blinked, at one level stung by his words, at another, untouched. The armour that protected her working persona had locked into place and made her impervious. Slowly, she turned around, hugged her son, whispered something into his ear and left.

Bertil Strand had been assigned a new company car, another Saab, while she had been on maternity leave. Annika presumed that he was even fussier, if such a thing could be possible, about this car.

‘You sure took your sweet time,’ he said as she tossed her bag and her laptop in the backseat.

The expression on the photographer’s face told her that she had shut the car door too hard.

‘What lousy weather,’ she murmured.

‘It’s Midsummer,’ Bertil Strand remarked. ‘What do you expect?’

He shifted into first gear and left the bus stop right before the No. 62 bus pulled up. Annika’s mouth was dry as she wriggled out of her raincoat and clumsily fastened her seat belt.

‘Got those telegrams?’

The photographer pointed at a thin stack of papers at her feet.

‘Seeing as our reporters are scattered halfway across the globe, this won’t be easy. We’re damn lucky that Wennergren was at the scene.’

Annika bent over to pick up the papers and the seat belt she had just fastened kept her from reaching them. Irritated, she unbuckled it again.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘And just what do you mean by that? Am I invisible even though I’m right here in the front seat beside you?’

The photographer gave her a quick glance out of the corner of his eye.

‘It’s a crying shame we aren’t prepared to accommodate situations like this – poor planning and no forethought. Schyman ought to take charge instead of bickering with Torstensson. Put your seat belt on.’

Annika didn’t have the energy to care about the power struggle between the managing editor and the editor-in-chief. She buckled up again, then closed her eyes and felt how the lack of power teamed with the longing for her children made her stomach churn. Her mother-in-law would certainly have a field day. Poor Thomas – why did her son’s life have to fall apart? Annika forced herself to exhale, then she opened her eyes wide and focused on the news-agency printouts. The telegrams, all five of them, had been set at one-minute intervals. Flash 09:41 a.m.: TV journalist Michelle Carlsson dead. 09:42: Michelle Carlsson killed by a shot to the head. 09:43: Michelle Carlsson found in a mobile control room near Yxtaholm castle. A weapon was found next to the victim. 09:44: The police suspect that Michelle Carlsson was murdered. 09:45: Several individuals are being interviewed by the police with regard to the murder of Michelle Carlsson.

‘They were taping a series that was going to be aired next week,’ Bertil Strand said.

‘
Summer Frolic at the Castle
,’ Annika said. ‘My friend Anne Snapphane has been working on the production team since March …’

She stopped talking and stared at the tracks of the raindrops on the side window, small streams that converged and diverged, relentlessly pressed back towards the rear until they smashed into the chrome strip of the car door. She remembered her friend’s rage and despair when Anne, after working for this production company for six years, was demoted from producer to researcher and studio hostess. This new position meant that Anne Snapphane would clean up the site after the shoot, take care of the taped material and file it, and do all the tiresome dirty work. This meant that she was probably still at the castle. Annika turned around and fished out her pen and her pad from her bag in the back seat.

‘Who are the suspects?’

‘I haven’t the vaguest,’ Bertil Strand replied and groaned.

The Saab had reached the Essinge highway, Stockholm’s ridiculously undersized beltway which, naturally, was clogged with cars at a standstill.

‘This is going to take for ever,’ he sighed as he put the car in neutral.

Annika couldn’t contain herself.

‘What did you expect?’ she said. ‘It’s Midsummer Eve.’

The photographer closed the vents and the windows started to fog up. The windshield wipers maintained a steady beat, the left wiper squeaking every time it reached the top of the windshield. Annika closed her eyes, forcing Thomas’s voice and her sense of failure to recede and concentrated on the rain, the windshield wipers, and the asthmatic wheezing of the climate control system.

‘
Summer Frolic at the Castle
’, she thought. The big family extravaganza slated for the TV Plus channel, filled with entertainment and discussion panels, guest stars and artists. Michelle Carlsson’s prime-time comeback, the TV star’s chance to show who was boss. Actually, Annika reflected, Carlsson was pretty good.

‘What do you think of Michelle?’ she asked.

Bertil Strand’s head was swivelling back and forth as if operated on ball bearings while he looked for an opening in traffic.

‘Fluff,’ he said. ‘No credibility. Fine in kids’ programmes and game shows, but that discussion forum she had wasn’t anything to write home about. She was so ignorant.’

Annika was surprised by the protests that welled up inside her.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Michelle spent ten years working with radio and TV broadcasting. She must have learned something.’

‘How to smile for the camera,’ Bertil Strand said. ‘Now how hard could that be?’

Annika shook her head, holding back tired protests. Still, she had often reasoned along the same lines when she and Anne Snapphane discussed journalism.

‘My best friend has worked with television broadcasting for the past six years now,’ she said. ‘Everything’s a lot more complicated than you’d think.’

Bertil Strand cut in front of a rough-and-ready Land Rover. The man behind the wheel of the Land Rover slammed on his horn.

‘It seems like one hell of a strange job,’ the photographer remarked. ‘All that technical junk that never works and droves of conceited morons running around.’

‘Sounds sort of like
Kvällspressen
,’ Annika said and looked out the window again, grinding her teeth. The man in the Land Rover gave her the finger.

What am I doing here? Here I am, with a pompous ass of a photographer, on my way to the scene of a senseless violent crime, leaving Thomas and the children behind, the only people who really matter. I must be out of my mind.
She sniffed at her hands; the scent of Kalle’s hair and Ellen’s tears still lingered. Her throat closed up. She turned around, got her cellphone and some paper towels out of her bag and wiped her hands.

‘I see an empty slot ahead,’ Bertil Strand exclaimed and stepped on the gas.

Annika dialled the number.

The police had ordered everyone to switch off their cellphones. Anne Snapphane was sure that she had obeyed orders, so the vibrations emanating from her jacket pocket came as a bit of a shock. She quickly sat up in bed, her pulse throbbing at the base of her throat and right above her eyes, and realized that she must have dozed off. Her phone buzzed like a gigantic insect hidden in the inside pocket of her rain jacket. Dazed, she brushed her hair off her face with her hands. Her tongue tasted mouldy. She dragged herself across the chaotic tangle of covers, throw pillows and bedspreads, unearthed her jacket and pulled out her phone. She regarded the display with distrust. No number had come up, making her hesitate. What was going on? Some kind of test?

She pressed the button and said in a whisper:

‘Hello?’

‘How are you?’ she heard Annika Bengtzon say, her voice sounding distant and indistinct. ‘Are you alive?’

A sob escaped Anne Snapphane’s lips. Covering her eyes with one hand, she pressed down hard to relieve the pain in her head and listened to the wireless connection. It whistled and rattled, there were engine noises and the wobbly moans of passing car horns.

‘Just barely,’ she whispered.

‘We’ve heard about Michelle,’ her friend said, speaking slower than usual. ‘We’re on our way over. Can you talk?’

Anne started to cry, softly and silently, salty tears dripping into the receiver.

‘I think so.’

Her reply came out as a gasp.

‘… Lousy traffic jams … you out there now?’

The connection broke up and went fuzzy; Annika’s sentences came out in fragments. Anne Snapphane took a deep breath and felt her pulse slow down.

‘I’m not allowed to leave my room in the South Wing. They’ve detained us all and I guess they’ll question us one by one.’

‘What’s happened?’

She swiped away the tears with the back of one hand, clutching her phone in the other hand and pressing it to her ear, her end of a lifeline.

‘Michelle,’ she whispered. ‘Michelle’s dead. She was in the OB and the back of her head was blown away.’

‘Are there lots of cops around?’

Anne Snapphane’s heart stopped racing and approached a manageable rate. Annika’s voice represented normality and the real world. Her knees sore, Anne got up and looked out the window.

‘I can’t see much from here, just a bridge over a channel and a few archery targets. I’ve heard a few cars and a helicopter landed a while ago.’

‘Did you see her?’

Anne Snapphane shut her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose while the images flashed past, piercing through her wooziness.

‘I saw her. I saw her …’

‘Who did it?’

There was a knock on the door. Anne froze and stared at the door, paralysed. Her lifeline snapped – confusion swallowed her up once more.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she whispered into the phone and hung up.

‘Anne Snapphane?’

The voice on the other side of the door was commanding. She tossed the phone under the covers and cleared her throat. Before she had the chance to reply, the door swung open. The officer standing in the doorway was young and obviously nervous.

‘Right, you can come along now.’

She stared at him.

‘I’m pretty thirsty,’ she said.

The policeman didn’t see how unreal she felt, he didn’t see her as a person at all. He looked right through her.

‘Go out through the door and to the left. Hurry up.’

The rainy weather and all the closed doors left the hallway dark. The walls seemed to billow – she wasn’t quite sober yet. In order to gather some physical and emotional support, she walked down the hallway with one hand touching the wall. No other members of the TV team were in sight.